Machu Picchu is not a place you visit on impulse. Since 2024 entry works through numbered circuits with assigned time slots, and tickets for the most popular ones sell out weeks ahead. Circuit 2 leads to the classic postcard view from the guardian's hut; Circuit 1 covers the upper terraces; circuits 3 and 4 move through the lower urban sector without reaching the upper viewpoint. If this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, book Circuit 2.
The climb up Huayna Picchu, the sharp peak standing behind the ruins in every photograph, is sold separately and has a very small daily quota. It takes about forty-five minutes of carved steps, sections with steel cable and a considerable drop on one side — not for anyone who suffers from vertigo. The sensible alternative is Machu Picchu Mountain: longer, far wider underfoot, and with a more open panorama of the site and the Urubamba river winding below.
Getting there
There is no road. Normal access is by train from Ollantaytambo (about ninety minutes) or from Poroy near Cusco. PeruRail and IncaRail run the route in several classes; the panoramic carriage costs more and does not change the scenery, which is spectacular from any seat. The train stops at Aguas Calientes, and from there a bus climbs in twenty-five minutes up a road of tight switchbacks. You can also walk up in a long hour and a half of steps, which only makes sense if you are properly acclimatised.
The budget option is the Hidroeléctrica route: a van from Cusco followed by a three-hour flat walk along the railway line. It makes for a long day, but plenty of travellers choose it and the stretch through the cloud forest is lovely.
Sleep at the bottom the night before
The most common mistake is trying to do everything in one day from Cusco. Aguas Calientes is not a pretty town, but staying there lets you catch the first bus at half past five and walk in while mist is still lifting off the ruins — which is when the place genuinely astonishes. By mid-morning the atmosphere is completely different.
The Sacred Valley deserves its own days
Between Cusco and Ollantaytambo lies a temperate valley that many people merely drive through and that easily fills three days. Pisac combines a market with terraces and cliff tombs hanging above the gorge. Ollantaytambo preserves a still-inhabited Inca street plan, with water channels running down the lanes. Moray is a set of concentric circular terraces that worked as an experimental agricultural station, with several degrees of difference between the top ring and the floor. A few kilometres away, the Maras salt pans form thousands of stepped pools that local families have worked since pre-Inca times.
One note on altitude: Cusco sits at 3,400 metres and the Sacred Valley some five hundred metres lower. If you fly in from sea level, spending your first nights in the valley rather than the city makes acclimatisation considerably easier.